


Rosebud

by Demmora



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, God I think I wrote this when I was 17, I'm sure it was going somewhere I'm just not sure where, Missing Moments, No Smut, SO MUCH FLUFF, Snippets, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 11:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: It’s the way she tilts her head to catch the light in the reflective surface that draws his attention, but it’s the parting of her lips as she sweeps the little gold stick over them that keeps it. He watches, transfixed as her lips purse then part in a ghost of a kiss, and something funny in his stomach flips. And then her back straightens, her face hardens, and she marches off as though the moment never happened. He finds himself watching for it again and again, feeling like a guilty little voyeur but not quite bad enough about it to stop. Until one day she lifts the stick to her nose and inhales and a look of such profound pain crosses her features that Han almost wants to say something. Almost.





	Rosebud

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a Missing Moments series I was working on but never finished, focusing on Han's budding not-so-little crush on Leia and all the ridiculous little things he does for her while still being in denial. This one's about lipstick. I'm not sure where I was going with it either.

It’s the way she tilts her head to catch the light in the reflective surface that draws his attention, but it’s the parting of her lips as she sweeps the little gold stick over them that keeps it. He watches, transfixed as her lips purse then part in a ghost of a kiss, and something funny in his stomach flips. And then her back straightens, her face hardens, and she marches off as though the moment never happened. He finds himself watching for it again and again, feeling like a guilty little voyeur but not quite bad enough about it to stop. Until one day she lifts the stick to her nose and inhales and a look of such profound pain crosses her features that Han almost wants to say something. Almost.

One day he finds it sitting on the lounge table of the _Falcon_ and picks it up out of curiosity. It’s a lipstick of course, the white lettering at the side worn away from constant thumbing. Removing the top he finds it smells heady and a little bit sweet, like violets perhaps, or some other flower he wouldn’t know from a weed. Further inspection on the underside tells him that it’s made from crushed rose petals and a whole host of other ingredients he can’t pronounce. His stomach sinks when he finally makes out the name on the base in gummy letters, the sticker worn down almost to mulch.

“What are you doing?” The words are harsh and demanding, but it’s the fear in her voice that makes Han look up. She’s standing on the ramp way, face pale, dark eyes fixated on the tube in his hand.

“Found it,” he said nonchalantly, turning it over in his hands once more before holding it out to her. She near takes his fingers off the way she snatches it back, but he doesn’t have it in him to comment. “Was trying to figure out if you’d thank me for finding it, or take my head off again.”

She looks relieved for a moment—only a moment—before her eyes harden into the usual scowl he’s come to expect. He prefers it when she’s glaring at him. He knows how to deal with people being angry at him.

“I was coming back to apologize,” she replied curtly, “but if you’re going to be a nerf about it…”

He raises his hands in supplication. “All right, Your Worship, don’t get your braid in a knot.”

For a moment he thinks she might start yelling again, but her body language isn’t behind the full force of her scowl. She’s holding the tiny cosmetic tube between both hands, though it barely merits the grip of one. Instead she scoffs, rolling her eyes at him and stomps back down the ramp way.

“Apology accepted!” He shouts back after her, and grins when she mutters something she _definitely_ didn’t learn in finishing school. Although she might have, when he considers they way she spins her cutlery—like anything can be a shiv if she's determined enough. 

After that he notices that she wears it less and less, her lips look paler, drawn tight with worry. Everything about her looks drawn, and he finds himself riling her up more and more just to see the flush of color in her cheeks which ought never to have left.

Luke thinks he has a death wish and mostly keeps his head down and out of it. The kid has enough crossfire to worry about without getting caught in middle of their fights. Han worries about him too, but it’s easier to deal with Luke. If you hung around long enough and let the silence hang, the kid would break it first and then you could tell him what he needed to hear. With Leia the silence could go on forever. The last star could fall out of the sky, and she’d still be there, lips pursed against screaming the pain he knows she must be feeling. So he makes her scream at him instead.

He watches one last time, right before she’s about to get up on an overturned crate and start a speech. The way she leans in to the reflective surface of a transport mirror and pulls out the golden tube is familiar to him now. It's shine has turned matte now, gaudy rather than glossy, and he watches her scrape out the last few dregs of color with the tip of her pinky finger, applying it sparingly to her lips. She doesn’t raise it to her nose this time, but the look of pain is there as though she had. It’s with some small horror he watches as she considers it in her hands, then drops it to the ground, fists clenched at her sides as she walks away toward the crate.

Han spends the entirety of the speech trying to edge his way over to where he thinks it fell, but it’s lost in the crowd.

It's some months later and they're sitting together around a campfire in the secluded clearing of a forest. The Rogues are about somewhere, crashing merrily through the undergrowth no doubt still trying to chase Luke down into taking his “birthday shots”. The kid had wisely cottoned onto this as being a bad idea and tried to excuse himself. But the Rogues were not to be lightly dissuaded.

They are on route to the next rendezvous point, Hoth of all places, but there was time enough to stop off briefly and enjoy some downtime. It just so happens to coincide with Luke’s birthday, and at the stroke of midnight, Leia’s as well.

Though she hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, and this little get together is mostly owed to the scheming of Rogue Squadron trying to get their commander to blow off a little steam before his head explodes. But Han remembered, though how he doesn’t know. Perhaps it was because their birthdays were so close, or he remember Luke telling him about it. Either way she hasn’t drawn any attention to herself, in fact she’s sitting off to one side perched on an over turned barrel, looking awkward and isolated.

She glares at him as he kicks his way through the dusty ground toward her, but he’s used to that by now. Something would be seriously wrong if she didn’t greet his arrival with a scowl.

“Your Worship,” he says, easing down onto the ground beside her, legs stretched out toward the bonfire Chewie had insisted on making before deciding it was too hot and retreating back on board the ship to run the cooling system. The air smells like smoke and the scent of whatever kind of wood they’re burning. It’s not unpleasant, and for a moment Han wishes they could stay for longer. He very nearly never wants to leave.

“Captain Solo.” She says primly, her unease further betrayed by her perfect Alderaanian annunciation. It had been slipping over the year into something less formal, a mix of brogue and slang entering into her speech which Han can only take some credit for. But it always came back full force when she was about to give a speech in public. Or whenever she was on her guard.

“They picked a good spot,” he says by way of keeping the silence at bay, wondering if he was insane to do what he was about to do. He’d been asking himself that same question for the last month since he’d decided on it. “We should bring the Rogues as an escort more often.”

“I rather like it.” Leia admits, her own legs stretching out toward the fire, booted feet wiggling at the flames. “It feels more like camping, than being on the run.”

Han huffs with laughter into his ale bottle, and tilts his head back to look at her. “Sweetheart, I don’t think you’d know what to do with yourself if you weren’t running.”

She returns his sardonic expression with one of her own, and lets her feet drop with a clang back against the metal of the barrel. “I could say the same for you, Captain.”

Silence falls, with only the crackling of the wood and the sound of the night life between them. It’s not uncomfortable, not quite, but Han finds himself looking at his chrono uneasily anyway.

“Happy birthday.”

Leia starts hard enough to almost fall off the barrel, and Han reaches out to grip her leg to keep her from pitching backwards.

“How did…I mean thank you, but how do you—?”

“Oh Leia,” he drawls feeling her stiffen at the use of her given name. She’s gotten so used to his over formalities that she hardly seems to expect it from him. “You only _think_ I don’t pay attention.”

“Well you could have fooled me,” the little princess mutters, and Han laughs, letting go of her leg when she tries to kick him with it, however lightly. He knows she’s thinking of this morning when she’d tried to order him about and he’d carried on reading his book like she wasn’t there. The very idea that he could read seemed to have jostled her somewhat and Han had reacted appropriately. It had only been when she’d said “please” he’d deigned to hear her.

“When’s your birthday?” she asked suddenly, and it is Han’s turn to stiffen.

“You know, I don’t quite rightly remember.” He doesn’t know why he tells her the truth when she asks such questions. Luke had been asking for months and Han had merely avoided answering him.

“You don’t know when your birthday is? But, you have Imperial files…”

“I lied. I lied about a lot of things on those files. I even…” he takes another sip of his drink and then gestures to his eyes, “had laser surgery done so my criminal record wouldn’t show up. Let me tell you that was _weird_ , looking in the mirror and not seeing your own eyes for several months while they heal, that’ll make anyone forget who they really are. As for my birthday…well after my mother died I just sort of forgot.”

“Do you remember her?” Leia asks after a little while, long enough for Han to have picked up a stick and start drawing shapes in the dirt.

“Not really. I remember her perfume. Some cheap Corellian spritz,” he replies, indulging her when he sees her curious expression, “But it was hers, so she loved it. She never had much.”

“How did she die?”

Han decides it is time to become deaf again, and carries on his conversation as though she never spoke, tossing his stick into the fire where it snaps and crackles instantly.

“Speaking of perfume, well, it’s not _strictly_ speaking perfume. I got you something.”

He’s decided he’s drunk enough to be in denial about what is happening, so there’s no time like the present. The little box had been burning a hole in his pocket the whole night anyway, so he might as well let her burn him up entirely when she rejected it.

He watches from his relaxed position as she blinks at him, then at the box being offered to her. There’s a puzzled smile on her face, like she doesn’t know if it’s a trick or not, but she takes it from him and gently pries the side open, tipping out the precious contents into the palm of her hand.

He feels the air around her freeze, as though she’s been hit with a stun gun, her breath stopping as she holds the golden cylinder up to the fire light.

“I found it when me and Chewie were running that message for that Naboo senator of yours, Naberrie? Anyway, I was walking through the market district and…”

What he tells her is not quite the truth. True he had entered the market on a whim, but it had been the scent that had drawn him, not that a stall had tipped over and he’d bent down to pick some of the wares up and found it in the pile. It had smelt so much like that little golden tube he’d almost tripped over himself to try and find it, Chewie following bemusedly after him. The woman running the stall had been surrounded by flowers, a small selection of rare and exotic perfumes and cosmetics on her tray. He hadn’t been able to find the _exact_ shade, but the woman had told him that “Alderaanian Rosebud” was just a half shade lighter than “Alderaanian Rosebloom”. He’d half expected to pay a small fortune for it, given how rare it must now be, but the seller had taken no more than thirty imperial credits and boxed it for him.

When she doesn’t speak he finishes his drink instead. And when she still hasn’t said anything he gets up, dusting off his behind and brushing his hands down the front of his pants. “Anyway, I know it’s stupid but I saw it and—“

“It belonged to my mother.” The words come out tight and small, and Han turns to find her uncapping the little stick and bringing it to her nose. She sniffs at it, her little nose wrinkling delicately, and there is a look of such profound pain on her face that for a moment Han thinks it was a mistake to give it to her. But the smile that breaks through the sadness is like lightning in a storm. “Breha, I mean, not my birth mother…” Han blinked, he hadn’t even known Leia was adopted. “She used to wear it all the time, I used to watch her put it on. I loved watching her dress. She’d go into her room as herself, and come out the Queen of Alderaan. It was like watching the guard put on their armor. When I was little I used to wait until her stick was almost done, then steal it. She never said anything. She did show me how to put it on though, so I didn’t look so much like a clown.”

She laughs, and Han finds himself smiling sadly at the heartbreak in what should be such a happy sound. This time when the silence falls between them it is Leia who eventually breaks it.

“ _Thank you_.”

“Ah, it’s nothing, Your Highness,” he begins, and is promptly cut off when Leia stands up and comes toward him, pulling him down by the scruff of the neck and placing a chaste kiss to the side of his cheek. Her lips are bare, but Han feels as though he is marked by them for the rest of the night.

He never sees her wear it, and in time he forgets about it. There’s only so much you can remember when the world you’ve been trying to evade for so long finally catches up with you.


End file.
